August 7, 2017—UO political scientist Erin Beck thinks development organizations aren’t asking the right questions if they want to truly understand what the money they spend trying to help lift poor people out of poverty around the globe is actually doing.

Her new book, How Development Projects Persist, outlines her takeaways from researching nongovernmental microfinance organizations for poor rural women in Guatemala and challenges standard ways of measuring the success of development projects. She argues that organizations rely too much on numbers and often overlook critical human interactions, which are not as easily measured but are central to understanding how development projects function and persist.

“We can’t just think about what the projects are doing for people but should also examine what people do for projects,” Beck said. “We need to look at how policies get transformed on the ground.” › Continue reading

In Pursuit of Sacred Justicean upcoming talk by Roberto Rodríguez (Dr. Cintli) Professor of Mexican American and Raza Studies at the University of Arizona

Roberto Rodríguez (Dr. Cintli)

Dr. Cintli will discuss his latest book, Our Sacred Maíz is Our Mother, on maíz culture and food colonization, migration, and storytelling among Indigenous, Mexican and Central American peoples of the Americas.

He interweaves these “Sacred Maíz Narratives” with reflections on his acclaimed journalistic work on the topic of Red-Black-Brown Communities in Resistance to U.S. Law Enforcement and Military Violence as well as his latest collaborative project, Smiling Brown: Gente de Bronce – People the Color of the Earth, a book, play, and series of video dialogues which explore color consciousness and light-skin privilege. › Continue reading

CLLAS Graduate Grantee Presentation

María Belén Noroña, a graduate teaching fellow in the Department of Geography, will discuss alternative ways in which indigenous communities produce understandings of territory when material control over such resources is threatened by mining activities. In collaboration with an indigenous community in the Amazon of Ecuador, Belén explores how socio-spatial relations based on reciprocity, collaboration and solidarity contribute to secure collective means of survival. The process of securing such means of survival require collective action operating at several scales and with multiple actors producing new understandings of territory that extend beyond material relation between the population and their physical space. This talk is part of the Geography Department’s Tea Talk Series. Refreshments will be offered at 3:30 P.M. Belén’s research was funded in part by a Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies grant.

Winona LaDuke is a celebrated Native American activist and leader, environmentalist, speaker, and author. Residing on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, Ms. LaDuke is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, where she works on the national level to advance Native environmental issues and sustainable Native communities.

The former Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States and Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year is also a founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. LaDuke will debunk the widely-held notion reducing Nature to property and discuss the international movement dedicated to legally recognizing Nature’s right to exist, persist and naturally evolve.

Sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and by Ethnic Studies, Environmental Studies, and Native American Studies and by the Center for the Study of Women in Society.

Luisella Preciado is a human rights defender and attorney with the FrayBa Human Rights Center. There, she accompanies indigenous peoples fighting for their rights as autonomous, self-determining communities. In her daily work she listens to and documents the dignified testimonies of people standing up for their rights and becoming subjects of their own history. It is with these powerful subjects of history that Luisella and her coworkers at FrayBa analyze the events within the surrounding political context to pressure governments and society to respect the original peoples of Mexico.

This event is part of a speaking tour organized by the Mexico Solidarity Network. More information is available at: http://mexicosolidarity.org/programs/speakingtours/walkingsubjectshistory0

Mixed-Status Families In the US/Mexico Borderlands: Inequality and the Meanings of Citizenship in the Contemporary Migration Experience

A talk by Dr. Heide Castañeda (Anthropology, University of South Florida)

Monday October 3, 1:30-3pm

There are 2.3 million mixed-status families in the US, in which the undocumented legal status of some members inﬂuences opportunities and resources for all. A focus on individuals in law and policy largely overlooks cumulative ripple eﬀects on families, although individuals are always embedded within these complex social units. This talk examines how mixed-status families experience speciﬁc policies related to health care, education, and mobility, and seeks to understand how they collectively navigate opportunities and obstacles. It is necessary to understand the experiences of these families – including and especially the impacts on some 4.5 million US citizen children – in order to ensure equitable application of policy and to reduce disparities. › Continue reading

2017 Latino Roots Celebration

Access the above link for giving to the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies Gift Fund. Online gifts may be made using the form available at this link; all gifts are processed by the University of Oregon Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization responsible for receiving and administering private donations to the University of Oregon.